Movie Review – Unbroken

Director and producer Angelina Jolie presents the powerful story of Louie Zamperini, WW2 POW, Olympic athlete, and Christian motivational speaker (without the latter part) in this movie that teaches us a lesson in survival, hope, faith (sort of), and forgiveness (sort of).

Unbroken is a touching movie about a man’s struggle to survive amid various life threatening situations, such as being stuck on a raft at sea with no food and little water, being tortured by Japanese military, and being held and forced to work in a P.O.W. camp.

I cannot get into the details of this movie without spoiling it, so I’ll just comment on the main parts. The acting was good, script was okay. Special effects were appropriate for the type of movie. The film’s best aspect is the makeup. Props to the makeup department. They managed to portray the character’s transformation caused by suffering, hunger, torture, heat exposure, dehydration, etc. Probably the most impressive of these isn’t the main character’s transformation, it’s the transformation of one of the secondary characters (Mac). Audiences will see the horrible sight of a human body affected by days of hunger, thirst, and skin exposure to the sun.

Probably the only weak point of the film is that there is so much story to tell, and compressed into a 2 hour film, it seems like some details, especially the character development, are overlooked. Either way, this does not affect the power of its message.

Another note that I disliked, although this does not affect the quality of the movie in itself, is that Jolie took a story that, when told by the main character in itself, is a story about how faith and hope helped him push forward, and removed all the faith part, reducing it to a scene where the main character “talks” with God, and a mention about his faith in the end credits. I don’t mind when filmmakers modify stories to appeal to their audiences, but removing a main aspect of the story is not something I’m fond of.

In conclusion, touching story, great make up and good acting all make up for a good film.